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Poetry is not only a set of words which are chosen to relate to each other; it is something which goes much further than that to provide a glimpse of our vision of the world.
Tahar Ben Jelloun
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Poetry transcends mere words to express deeper insights about our perceptions of the world.

In this quote, Tahar Ben Jelloun emphasizes that poetry is more than just a collection of carefully selected words. It serves as a medium through which we can share and reflect on our unique perspectives and understandings of life, offering a lens through which we can explore the complexities and beauty of our existence.

Themes

PoetryWordsVisionWorldExpression

In practice

Example use cases

In a literary discussion about the role of poetry in conveying emotions.

More from Tahar Ben Jelloun

Emigration is no longer a solution; it's a defeat. People are risking death, drowning every day, but they're knocking on doors that are not open.
Tahar Ben JellounRead
I came to poetry through the urgent need to denounce injustice, exploitation, humiliation. I know that's not enough to change the world. But to remain silent would have been a kind of intolerable complicity.
Tahar Ben JellounRead

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